Sherlock 221b Con Wank: The Aftermath
Ed. note: If you've come here from an outside website, please be aware that while we strive for these pages to be an accurate and well-documented accounting of events, this is an unofficial and internal wiki for the use of the nonnies at fail-fandomanon. This wank has been so massive and long-running that the editors of this wiki set up a third fucking page for it. It settled down for a very long time before it cropped up again in August 2016, the events of which were documented on the page TJLC vs JLEG: The Return of the Wankers (which has not yet been brought over from the old wiki in its entirety). This page, meanwhile, has been repurposed to cover most FFA discussions of TJLC in between the two big explosions in spring 2015 and summer 2016, as well as any subsequent fallout. Anyone with relevant links that are not on this page are invited to email them to anddiamssemicolon AT gmail DOT com. Post #265, Aug. 16-17, 2015 In an 81-comment subthread of the "Fandom Wank Thread," nonnies discussed Graceebooks minion Johnwatsugh (JW), who has since renamed their Tumblr chimpsinsocks. In this posthttp://archive.is/GxOJD, JW attacked Sherlock fanartist anotherwellkeptsecret (AWKS) and defended the attack in this posthttps://archive.is/SqB5L. OP wondered if they were "on a mission to trash everyone in fandom who even remotely liked" Traumachu, and noted that they were also telling people to unfollow anotherconsultingdetective (whose Tumblr is now gone) for having once rec'ed a fic by Traumachu. (Coincidentally, Grace had just reblogged several of AWKS's fanarts. "Oops, bad timing, johnwatsugh. What will fandom mom delete say?") JW also got an ask about what was so "problematic" about archiaart's fanworks. They repliedhttp://archive.is/DNvDl, "there's dubcon and noncon on there so unless it's been deleted (doubtful) i don't see how you're missing it. there's also the fact that john looks like a very tall 10 year old, which i understand does not equal pedophilia but like. please. and whether or not you're seeing the things we're talking about, everything said about this user is true and i don't see why you'd want to keep supporting someone like that." Another Johnwatsugh posthttp://archive.is/B9otW was tagged "#again why would so many of us accuse people randomly and with no basis like". Nonny: "I WONDER WHY." Nonnies also discussed Archiaart's lovely fanart of Sherlock pinning John down, captioned "If you truly wanted to escape, you'd have run faster…" and tagged #dubcon, which drew TJLC's ire. The consensus was that it could be viewed as dubcon, noncon with Sherlock being his usual dickish self," or pre-arranged rapeplay; but it certainly wasn't pedophilia, even if John looked a bit young there. Meanwhile, AWKS put up two posts (discussed respectively here and here) defending both herself and archiaart. Although one nonny wasn't thrilled that AWKS didn't draw a distinction between creating shota fanworks and defending real-life pedophilia, overall meme was very impressed by and appreciative of her posts. A nonny complained of Gracee's group, One by one they want to take down all the talented artists/writers..." Another quoted this with the word "talented" in bold and added, "I'm pretty sure you've put your finger on it right there. They're rooting out the competition Winterfox-style." Finally, this thread also covered Grace minion therealmartinsgrrrl comparing 221b Con to the Republican National Convention (original posthttp://archive.is/7Dfyz[5][5]; discussion of Grace's behavior at the con by a nonny who had several friends there; and [http://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/153946.html?thread=821719386#cmt821719386 caitlinfairchild, brainstormer of the hypothetical TJLCon, who was "perfectly pleasant ... except she follows these assholes and every so often I get this rude shock of seeing therealmartinsgrrrl turn up on my dash." Post #266, Aug. 18-19, 2015 The "Continuing Fandom Wank" thread was almost entirely composed of two separate TJLC-related subthreads. The first ran to 60 comments and started with a nonny noticing that Johnwatsugh (JW) had apparently deleted their post about a fan called sherlockedwatson. Nobody had receipts on this, but another nonny found a long screed by JW to the effect of, "It's so haaarrrd not being a shitty person because all these pedophiles are upsetting me!!" Nonny added, "You're a shitty person, johnwatsugh." Another said it sounded like johnwatsugh "has issues," and that touched off wank about whether the one cancelled out the other, as well as whether 18-year-old fans should be treated as adults or children. One nonny who fell on the "children" side of the equation told others to "get over" all the pedophilia accusations. Meme wasn't having it. The second subthread was 14 comments long and addressed "more hypocrisy from the graceebooks group." Subthread OP linked to now-deleted art posts by thexth, burner of fanart books, and asked, "If archiaart's drawing style is pedophilic, what the hell is going on with these baby-faced cherubs?" While nonnies agreed overall that it was only the style in which thexth drew the faces that made them look really young, one said, "From people who insist that the youthfulness of this style is proof that the artist is a pedophile, I would expect great pains to avoid drawing/reblogging anyone looking young." Post #273, Aug. 29, 2015 The 48-comment thread titled "Sherlock fandom wank, again" was mostly about loudest-subtext-in-television (LSIT) and her smarmy, passive-aggressive, bullying ways. Anotherwellkeptsecret (AWKS) had just decided to take a break from fandom and put up a post to "reassure everyone that I'm not gone for good." LSIT's Tumblr has been deleted since late winter 2016, but one nonny preserved her response to AWKS in full. Meme reaction: : oh wow, I don't think I've ever wanted to punch someone through my computer screen so hard before. : : LSiT is genuinely the most condescending, passive-aggressive person I've ever come across IRL/online. (Not that that's saying much.) She does it so..subtly, and it have never ever sat well with me. If I start talking about her, it will be nothing but furiously stoking a hateboner when I don't even exactly hate her. I never even followed her or had any online convo with her. But man. Whatever I've sampled of her put me off quite speedily. Her need to put herself in a victim position and/or paint herself as a saint is exactly the same as that of grace. Only, grace does it with all the crude noise, and LSiT does it with a finesse. With same end results on my end anyway. Nobody needs your ~blessings~ LSiT. : : I know don't troll the wank is a rule that is sensible, but the syrupy Umbridge like tones on display here make me want to engage so badly. : : So as it seemed before, they're bullying her as long as it takes to either make everyone hate her or make her denounce Archia. I hope they don't succeed. : : Your fault for getting drunk. : Your fault for walking alone. : Your fault for dressing like that. : Your fault for writing that fic. It didn't just hurt you this time, did it? You put other people through it too. You inspired the rapists. You encouraged the rapists. You are responsible for so many violations. You should have been better. You should have thought of everyone your example was hurting. You should have thought of all your friends who will be hurt because of what you did, who were hurt because of people like you. Johnwatsugh was featured again this post: "Looks like this round of wank was sparked by screenshots of anotherwellkeptsecret's explanation of her position regarding Archia. How considerate of them to selectively include the FFA thread as well. *waves*" That nonny linked to a reblog by Tumblr user gaypipe that's now gone, but the post can still be read at thejohnlockhellhttp://archive.is/VC7BO. When asked by an anon if they were happy they'd driven AWKS off Tumblr, Johnwatsugh replied (original posthttp://archive.is/OkuwX), ":) i hope she's happy with her decision to condone and support people that sexualize rape and child abuse". Finally, nonnies [http://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/156144.html?thread=834924272#cmt834924272 discussed LSIT's hypocritical reblog of this eminently reasonable post by thepagejakeenglish. Summary: Just about all of it is hilariously pot-meet-kettle. Winterfox levels thereof, in fact." Post #274, Aug. 29-30, 2015 OP of an 111-comment subthread in the "Fandom wank" thread: Johnwatsugh (JW) wobbles wildly between calling people pedophiles and ok. i’m.” They linked to a post in which JW was expressing suicidal feelings and claiming they would leave Tumblr. Apparently they had a crush on the actress Amanda Abbington and were upset that she had interacted in a friendly way with the (admittedly misogynist and otherwise obnoxious) theatre worker Tim Roberts. Late in the thread there was more discussion of their mental health, with some nonnies sympathetic, others not so much. Most of the thread was devoted to how TJLC, especially loudest-subtext-in-television (LSIT), had succeeded in bullying an apology out of awellkeptsecret (AWKS) — e.g., by sending "concerned" asks to anyone reblogging her work. AWKS made a groveling apology. Nonny: "She has nothing to apologise for! It's so infuriating that the moral crusaders are making her feel responsible for any of that wank." AWKS also stated she would henceforth try not to reblog from other people (nonnies discuss). LSIT's response (preserved here) was "as awful and smug as you can imagine" and "pretty typical condescending tl:dr bs you'd expect from her, with a side of victim-blaming." It included the implication that one can be "primed" for child sexual abuse by reading or looking at shota, as well as a passive reference to "221b drama" without mentioning who caused all of it. One nonny expressed disappointment in AWKS for not only apologizing but "actively defending LSiT and 'confessing' to (unintentional) harm. That is bullshit of the highest order and in doing this, she's giving perceived weight to every other bullshit accusation these people make. ... I hate Gracee and her shit golems for turning fandom into this." Elsethread, a few nonnies expressed a lack of respect for anyone who similarly gives in to such bullying. Various anons (politely) explained why this happens: [You don't know] a) what it's like, and b) how someone's past trauma can interact with this shit. Literally the only way for me to be okay was to back the fuck off and stop being part of the fandom. That was my spine showing, right there." Others pointed out that the fandom just stops being fun anymore, that young girls and women are socialized to make peace, that TJLC deliberately targeted people who have been open about their psychiatric issues, and that victims apologize "because you hope that it makes them stop. It doesn't, but you want it to stop, because you can't get online without dreading it." However, another nonny argued that if this sort of thing could happen to a very well-liked BNF like AWKS, it could happen to anyone else, and they felt AWKS had a responsibility to stand up to it: "She didn't even speak out against them, she simply didn't speak out against their targets. They are showing everyone in the fandom that if you don't join them you will be the next target." Finally, nonnies discussed two blogposts from the now-deleted johnlocktentacles, "one of graceebooks' less virulent (but considering the context that's not saying much) friends." One of JLT's posts asserted the need to chase all "pedos" out of Sherlock fandom. The other claimed that Arthur Conan Doyle wrote Sherlock as "canon queer" because Holmes was "resonant of the classic fin de siecle homosexual aesthete," and because in one story he "adopts a 14-year-old 'telegraph boy' as his valet, a reference that Conan Doyle's readers no doubt would have associated with the recent Cleveland Street Affair, when 'telegraph boys' serviced aristocratic male patrons and subsequently gave incriminating testimony." Nonny: "But, you know, interpreting a character as having paid for sex with children who need to engage in survival prostitution is, like, so forward thinking. That's the kind of queer representation we're fighting for! Mofftiss will provide." (Wiki readers who want actual historical background on this matter are referred to this detailed comment.) Post #277, Sep. 3-4, 2015 Discussion this post was an 18-comment subthread in "Fandom wank" titled "GRACEEBOOKS & CO, pt. 2: THIS FUCKING THING AGAIN." Tiltedsyllogism made a long, thoughtful, and altogether too generous reply to LSIT's smarmy response to AWKS's apology (see above on this page). OP added, "One of Grace's cronies is harassing someone for having an anxiety flareup after being harassed." (The link provided, to thranduilseyebrows.co.vu, is now dead.) Grace was arguing on her blog that "boyfriend jeans" are alienating and homophobic and that straight women are perpetrating homophobia in buying them." And stating that she had two poor adhd children living in my living room." These were apparently lionsing and martinfreeman, who were then respectively 18 and 19, in contrast to Grace's 30. A nonny said Grace reminded them of other fandom bad actors who "see themselves as this all-accepting, all-nurturing figure but are actually self-centered with a martyr complex and get vicious when told no/stop." A second said of Grace that she's "pushed away" all her age peers in fandom because "She gets off on the intense, unquestioning loyalty only teenagers have to offer." Post #279, Sep. 6, 2015 Just 7 comments, about a now-deleted post Grace reblogged without commentary. It concerned Tumblr staff and an apparently unfounded accusation that was not described. The gist was that too many people on Tumblr are ready to believe "unsubstantiated and slanderous shit bc it has a lot of notes," which represent "gullible duped mobs ... on the hunt for Cheap Moral Glow who will slander first, LOUDLY, and apologize later or never, and very softly at that, after the damage is done." The first nonny to respond said of Grace, "Even if she's just reblogging, that kind of hypocrisy is staggering." Post #280, Sep. 7-8, 2015 The thread "Sherlock Fandom: Wank 'Till it Chafes" was 34 comments long. OP linked to a reblog of a Joolaweed post by captain-liddy that said, "if you weren't in fandom before tjlc you don't know…you just don't know" and was tagged "#dark times" and "#dark dark times". Another nonny expressed disbelief that the sentence didn't actually end with "... how much of a massive, towering ziggurat of rancid horseshit the fandom has become in comparison." OP themselves "It doesn't take much to find unnecessary wank, bullying, and negativity these days. That's not my recollection of Sherlock fandom 'pre-TJLC.' Two years ago, I had to go out of my way to go to specific blogs I knew were engaging in wank, and they had *reputations*, so people avoided them." Many other nonnies agreed. One provided a detailed rebuttal to Joolaweed's assertion, with support from the first nonny to reply to them. loudest-subtext-in-television (LSIT) had replied somewhere in the notes to that post, "I had lurked for a year and almost didn't make my blog because I thought the fandom was unbearably negative". And, ironically, captain-liddy expressed their bitterness in other posts toward Sherlolly fans who had obtained the Tumblr handle theprivatelifeofsherlockholmes or who had tagged a Sherlock gifset "wrongly." Elsethread, one nonny noted with satisfaction that "Tropical Storm Grace appears be fizzling out in the Atlantic and poses no real threat. She ain't all that." Post #282, Sep. 9-11, 2015 In a thread titled "Who is X and why does meme hate them?", a subthread OP asked, "Who is graceebooks? Is she related to horse-ebooks?" The 45-comment subthread included a very long summary of the TJLC mess, with bonus details of Grace's multi-bigoted behavior in past fandoms. When another nonny, possibly one of Gracee's Minions, sniped, "Did you seriously type all this up just now? Maybe it's time to take a break," yet another said, "As someone who remembers Gracee from Glee fandom, I'm glad that people are keeping tabs on her shitty behavior. Write ups like this make me happy." That nonny themselves had many things to say about Grace's previous fandom escapades: "I have a personal stake in this because I got into a big thing with her over Blaine's race and if she had this level of power then, I would've been run out of fandom on a rail." They then described Grace's bashing of Blaine, which included a lot of skeevy racist, homophobic, and victim-blaming rhetoric while calling his fans "racists." And: "Even worse, a lot of the people involved in this wank, myself included, were POC, and no matter how many times we explained that no, racism doesn't work that way, she kept going." Also, apparently Grace "thinks she looks just like Rihanna." Post #326, Nov. 22-24, 2015 OP of a thread titled "Sherlock Fandom Drama - 221B ConCom,”, who was friends with some of the Gender Politics panelists at the con, said: : I'd just like to report that as of almost eight months afterwards the ConCom (ie, the people who RUN 221BCon) : a. did nothing to reach out to the panelists afterwards : b. continue to ignore repeated emails from everyone on the panel about what happened (including TheGreenIrene) : c. have not banned anyone for their illicit recording and posting of the panel online (they've only banned graceebooks, and that's for something unrelated to the panel harassment and subsequent online harassment) : All of this is in blatant disregard of the anti-harassment policy they had at the time of that convention, which said "Harassment includes... deliberate intimidation, stalking, following, harassing photography or recording, sustained disruption of talks or other events..." : That is not how you run a fucking convention. In this subthread and this one, nonnies noted that the concom also didn't seem to care that Grace and her crowd had made written threats to punch the various panelists and other targets of their harassment, and claimed they'd happily harass these people all over again. However, they did care that Grace defended friends of hers who were selling merchandise out of their rooms (essentially stealing the cost of a dealers' hall table) and threatened to doxx and sue the con organizers. Post #365, Jan. 30-31, 2016 In the "Ask meme" thread, a nonny started a 60-comment subthread by asking what Fawnlock was. The initial conversation went like this: : "It's Sherlock as a baby deer who gets fucked by John. Yes." : "... I really hope you're kidding. omg what??" : "Wait until you hear about the bat." : "bat!john and q-tips : what has been seen cannot be unseen..." A nonny told subthread OP, "You really can't understand the full impact of it until you understand many of the people writing/promoting/praising innocent young dear Sherlock feeling funny down there and being stunned when adult male John makes white stuff come out of his "peeper" (THEIR WORD) were viciously assaulting other fans for writing pedophilia." The thread also included minor kinkshaming wank and reminiscences of squicky Harry Potter fanworks. Post #372, Feb. 10-12, 2016 A nascent wank that had gotten a few comments on the previous post was discussed in this post's Tumblr thread: "TL;DR some guy made a video 'Are Sherlock/John Gay?' as part of a video series, using lots of LSiT's media, and didn't credit. LSiT and co flipped their shit. Accusations of plagiarism and tone policing abound!" OP linked to a few LSIT posts (now gone), as well as this defense of herhttp://archive.is/wQeCA by hubblegleeflower, who called LSIT's meta "pretty much the foundation of TJLC. ... It's not an exaggeration to say her work is the Bible of TJLC." A nonny responded: "Seriously? That might be cute if it was intended as ironic, self-depricating humour, but it isn't. I'm saying this as someone who fits the label of 'TJLCer' - i.e., I think Johnlock will be actualized in canon. The cult of personality that's sprung up around Gracee, LSiT, and their little mean girl posse is ridiculous." They also claimed that the accusations of plagiarism were "baseless" because the points in the video had been made by countless Tumblr bloggers before, and anyone watching the show could come away with the same ideas. ... I'd love to see LSiT actually try to get the guy's video taken down like she's threatening to do. You can't copyright an interpretation of a TV show." They also were exasperated with LSIT telling the guy he was "not entitled to my work, nor my forgiveness": : Who does she think she is? God? ("Where were you when I laid the foundations of TJLC?"). These aren't the words of a victim seeking redress for a wrong they were done; they're the words of a petty tyrant out for revenge. Anyone with an iota of humility and compassion understands the idea "don't hold to malice what can be held to stupidity." This kid made an honest, rookie mistake, and he's apologized and tried to make amends. LSiT is dragging him over the coals because she's drunk off whatever "power" she holds in fandom and loves to throw her weight around. This post also featured discussion of "the usual suspects ragging on a Sherlolly ficathon with theme of characterizing Molly and Sherlock as bi, pan, trans, etc." Nondeducible sighedhttp://archive.is/sMiUl, "unfortunately the straights are at it again" and whined about how the ficathon "hurts genuinely deep in my soul... i'm just…so tired. so deeply tired and in pain and upset." Writemeastoryofsolitude railedhttp://archive.is/W1ues about how it's "taking a pre-existing queer story (Johnlock) and erasing it to force a het pairing. THEN using queerness as a trope or a decoration to have their endgame het pair." And, in a now-deleted post, shitpostingmollyhooper took it upon her straight self to declare that the ficathon was "so insulting to lgbt people" and that the involved shippers were trying to say, "look! i'm not a bigot! ya see?" while they "bent and twisted a gay man's sexuality in order to fit into your oh-so-precious hetero wet dreams." This is all in spite of the fact that the ficathon was by/for queer Sherlolly fans. The idea was to see these characters they shipped written to be queer like them. The way the TJLCers went after then for being straight was nauseating." Both captainmerlin32 and buffyslaysedward angrily pointed this out on Tumblr, which prompted shitpostingmollyhooper to delete their post. Post #373, Feb. 12, 2016 Gracee minion Kinklock, throwing in after LSIT abandoned ship, wrotehttp://archive.is/dA0xa, "i need some of yall to realize that content creators in fandom are human, and aren't just here to provide you with a free service," and tagged the post with "#YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED TO THESE PEOPLE'S TIME AND LABOUR." This was discussed in the current Tumblr thread. The OP mistakenly thought: "Probable translation: HDU not give my awesome Sad Gay Baby Deer Sherlock fic all the comments and kudos," but another nonny provided the actual context. Subsequent Wank The wank surrounding 221b Con has mostly died down at this writing in early 2017. However, some discussion of it arose in the context of Ragnalock. Roane, whom Gracee and her minions had attacked relentlessly, posted on Jan. 28 about how their behavior was extremely similar to the bullying she suffered from the ages of 7 to 12. "So in the aftermath of 221b Con 2015, I pretty much shut down." When ruth0007 apologized to Roane for not having stood up "loudly enough," Roane vehemently stated she did not "blame ANYBODY for not standing up, seriously. That group made it very very very clear what happens to people who stand up, and I wouldn’t want anybody else to face that." To which Abundantly Queer, whose Tumblr handle is now ladyscientist-gentlemanthief, responded, : So, yeah, I’d like to think I stood up for Roane to the extent that I could, and what happened to me because of that made me not just leave Sherlock fandom, but all online fandom activity (which I’d been in since about 1997) and the greater Holmes fandom (which I’d been in since about 1980). And as anyone who’s ever met me can attest, I am far, far from a fragile flower. But the relentless, vicious abuse and threats from people who had been positively fawning at 221B con to my face just broke me. I wouldn’t expect anyone to put themselves through that - I will never put myself through that again. Meme discussion. Footnotes Category:Sherlock fandom